Yes we can

I can't.
That is what people love to say.
I can't.
It's never true.

Whenever I talk about drawing with people, I tend to get some sort of self-deprecating statement. "I can't draw" people confess, and I just shake my head because that attitude is half the problem.

I've been thinking about this lately because of some of the illustration I've been seeing. Most of the hand-done stuff I've seen lately isn't particularly exquisite or refined technically, but what it is is expressive. Sure of itself. You can tell the artist went the extra mile to fill in the whole background, or choose those colors.


Rainbirds by Jill Calder, photo from flickr.


Illustration by Calef Brown, from this illustrated version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The thing is: everybody can draw. (Or paint, as the case is here). Everybody can pick up a pencil, or pen, or crayon, and make marks on a paper. And everybody can do this when moved to do so when they see something. Drawing in and of itself does not need to meet any standard, nor is it even required to look like anything. It's just drawing. Marks on paper. Quality does not beget the action. Crosshatches and scribbles is drawing.

And people are like this about dancing, and singing. Or acting (i.e., playing pretend.) (Although, I suppose one could argue people become VERY good at pretending, particularly in customer service.) Many natural urges of human expression get restrained because of this weird expectation of perfection. Which is strange because if there's ever a place where non-perfection is key, it would be in the arts.

Which is why, a few nights ago when I handed you the leftovers and a pen and asked, "Would you label those?" I was delighted to see this.



You never claim to be very good, or very bad; quality has nothing to do with it. You just draw, when the mood strikes you, and it's wonderful. I wish everyone did.

epigraph from "Das Energi".

Zen and the art of web-presence

Jasinski, I was surprised to find, no longer updates his killer flash-website. He has instead moved shop to a blogspot blog.

This is really interesting to me. Anybody who's anybody in this Brave New (Illustration) World has a website, so that when you Google people like "Tim Biskup" and "S. Britt" you will be able to figure out who they are, what they do, and what they're up to. All the advice I've read anywhere says You Must Have A Website. A Proper Website. Not A Myspace Page* But A Right And Proper Mushtache And Hair-Slicked-Back With A Monocle Website If You Are At All Serious About This.

*Which is a bit of a no-brainer since myspace is a bit sophomoric. It would be like posting your big CEO plans on a livejournal. It's strange that certain web-places themselves garner a certain age depending on the patrons, but there we are. I guess that happens with real-world establishments too.

I can't afford to have my own website, and really at this point I am too lazy to commandeer webspace from my techie friends and build something anyway. Instead I've been using a blog, (which is now here,) assuming that once I had enough stuff there I would make a static "portfolio" page and give that out to prospective clients. This was my lame fix-it. This was me making do with what I had. So I was surprised to learn that one of my super-star idols had done this too.

So will this be a new trend? I hardly think everyone will be keen to drop their professionalism and let design firms root around in their sketchbooks so nakedly. But maybe. Maybe this is the New Way.

Edit: also. I would like this.

Fantastic

This makes me so unbelievably happy.

Make your mark

Somehow I didn't know about Tim Biskup or Charlie Harper, which seems a bit unfair to me. Biskup there looks a little familiar, kind of Nickelodeon to me for some reason, but I'm not sure. It isn't Home for Imaginary friends either, although I thought that as well. He's just well plugged into the collective unconscious I suppose, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's good that he seems to think so too.

Both guys go nicely with the kind of new retro thing people seem to be into now, people like S. Britt and the like. I think people our age want to tap into the resonance they felt when they themselves read picture books. Pictures are never quite alive in the same way as those were, for most people anyway. There has to be something more there than just the icky nostalgia thing. But maybe not. I am certainly not idly slicing these things up and pasting them all over any plain surface I can find. They make me happy in a deep and instant way, in a much different way than someone like Jasinki does, although he makes me very happy too.